Friends, Concerned Citizens:

On a Saturday night, two weeks ago, at the Race for Tara 3, I awoke with a start from a bad dream and I couldn’t get back to sleep.  In the dream (bear with me here, ‘cuz I hate hearing about people’s dreams just as much as you do) I was at the upcoming Mt Hood Rally with my dandy co-driver, Adam Craig.  And things were going well.  Adam had improved his pacenote reading and we were driving faster than ever, and enjoying a level of teamwork unachieved at earlier events.  With better communication, our level of commitment was rising, as our stage times were dropping.  More thumbs up in the pits, more stage wins, more groupies hanging out at the AC/CD service area (hey, it’s MY dream, don’t ruin it).  And then something happened.  Adam missed a note and we flew off the road.  I awoke before we hit the ground.  My heart was racing.  And I couldn’t sleep for a couple of hours as I realized that I was anxious about Mt Hood.

(Editor’s note - I saved my rally anxiety dreams for the night before the actual race; mine were more along the lines of “we’re not fast enough, but why, is it a turbo issue?” - AC)

Everything intact at the Gilhouley start.

I wasn’t anxious because of the dream; I dream about all sorts of stupid sh*t that doesn’t come true.  But the dream did awake me to the fact that the better we became as a team, and the fewer mistakes we made, the more exposed we would be to risk when the mistakes were made.  The more I trusted him, the more committed I became; and the more lucky/skilled I’d need to be to keep us on the road.  For the first time since our first rally 3 years ago, I was nervous and losing sleep.  At least until I got outta bed at 3:30 a.m. and ate Adam’s entire tub of KozyShack pudding.

Yes, we’re dejected. But at least the WOT is right side up.

This year, the Mt Hood Rally would be a one-day event, with two pass recce (i.e., “reconnaissance”) on Friday afternoon.  Adam and I had seen most of the roads here before in earlier rallies, but this would be our first time racing on our own pacenotes. Pacenotes are a shorthand way of describing corners and how quickly they can be driven.  The driver dictates them on the first pass of “recce” and the co-driver reads them back on the second pass, making adjustments along the way.  This would be a typical pacenote:

R5>4offcam 70 L6nc 50 L5vlg 100 foc 50–!R4oc/exp

Which reads: “Right five (approximately 5th gear) tightens to 4 off camber, 70meters (straight), Left Six do not cut, 50meters, Very Long Left Five, 100, flat(throttle) over crest 50meters into Caution! Right four over crest (exposure)”

This represents about 1/3 of a mile of pretty open gravel road, which you would cover in about 15-25 seconds.

The co-driver is responsible for feeding these instructions to the driver one or two corners ahead of where you’re roosting.  If reading all of that in 20 seconds with perfect timing sounds easy, try it while riding a rollercoaster — a rollercoaster that is following a track that doesn’t exist until you describe it, just as you need it.

Since AC and I are getting better at this rally thing, we had the highest speed factor of all the NW based teams at the event, and would be “first on the road,” racing all the stages with no fresh tracks to follow.  With cleared skies and drying mud on Saturday, we were excited to leave some ditch-to-ditch tracks that would surely earn the respect of the racers following us.

Stage 1 of 7 was Gilhouley, the shortest, slipperiest, and most technical stage of the day.  We lined up to the start board, engaged the launch control, and blazed away.  First car on the road!  Hell yeah!  After a couple Km feeling around for grip, we started carrying the mail, as Adam was reading the notes at just the right moment, and having the notes in our own words and our own descriptions made them very easy to absorb. By stage end, we’d put 6 seconds into second place (Bend’s Brian Svedin) and were only 2 seconds off of the stage record held by Carl Jardevall since 2004.  High-fives.  And some talking, and then another High-five!  That was fantastic!  With the second pass of all the stages coming in the afternoon, the track was sure to get quicker and it looked like we’d be battling with the NW’s best for stage records.  Kick-ass.

Stage 2 was the Road 17 Stage and was another great one.  After a Km of tarmac, it turned to flowy 4th and 5th gear corners with beautiful foliage and even more beautiful roads.  AC fell behind a second or two once, but was otherwise spot-on and we were going places with haste.  About half way through we were driving through a 150 meter straight, right 5 tightens to 4 into a left 4.  Those 150 meters felt awesome, as we were deep into 5th gear and having a great time.  And then Adam was about 2 seconds’ late calling out the “tightens to 4″ bit.  At first glance, it looked like this would be another one of the close call “moments” that we usually have once or twice a rally. We were overcommitted by about 20mph, but we were sideways (the best way to scrub speed and the safest way to drive on loose surfaces - no, really!) and I thought we’d just bump the rear tire.  Maybe de-bead the left rear tire, maybe do a little wall ride on a leafy berm, and have a crappy line into the following corner.

We’re OK. The WOT, not so much.

Turns out the outside of the corner was covered in clay and wet leaves, and we caught more of the berm than we hoped.  And we somehow (my video camera wasn’t rolling, or running, so we don’t know how exactly) we tomahawked the crap out of the Wheels of Teal.

AC and I just tried to do a CSI recreation of the crash on my kitchen table, and still are unsure of the motions involved.  The end result was us, and what used to be a very nice little car, going trunk first down the road at 50mph.  On our roof.  I was still thinking about what gear I’d need for the upcoming left turn when I realized that we were upside down and backwards.

When we came to a stop, AC tried to show how strong he was by opening his door.  Since the car was in the middle of the road on its passenger side, this proved difficult, and he began freaking out.  Just a little bit, and mind you, the ground was only 14″ from his head and there were no windows anymore.  We crawled through my door and ran up the road to put out our triangles and “O.K.” sign so that others would continue on but miss our car.  Between cars racing by, we spent the next 30 minutes trying in vain to jack and lever the car back on its feet with some big branches.  At one point, I saw AC running towards me with a massive 2 foot by 1.5 foot round of wood under his arm.  I was impressed that his shock and adrenaline made a bike racer able to carry around a giant piece of wood as if it were a down pillow.  Then we tried to use it as a fulcrum and it crumbled into a feathery mess.  And then I was just as impressed that his shock and adrenaline had made him (a Mainer!) think that that 15 ounce round of wood would make a good fulcrum.  Anyways, we had a pretty good time and had a lot of laughs trying to get our battered car back into the race.  We didn’t, of course.  It took 5 men to turn it over (or 3 men and 2 bike racers) when the sweep crew caught up to us.  They towed us off the road and one of them patted me on the back while the other stuck a “You’ve been Swept!” sticker on one of the two remaining windows.

Daylight reveals a bit of work ahead…

So our race was over, and after a couple of hours of day-salvaging, by riding around in the hills on our TCX cross bikes, we loaded up what was left of the WOT and headed home.  Life’s never easy for the Wheels of Teal, but this summer’s been particularly rough.  Carl’s shopping list this week includes:   roof, right rear quarter panel, right doors, front, rear, and side glass, a fender, a bumper, some frame straightening, a strut, roof vent, paint, decals, beer, razors and salad dressing.

Good thing we’ve got our day jobs.

Thanks for coming along,

Carl Decker

Team AC/CD

Giant Team 4 Fun

[Editor’s note: Adam Craig, Giant MTB Team Pro and U.S. National Short Track Champion, has dozens of interests besides racing mountain bikes. Chief among those interests is Rally Car Racing. His Giant MTB teammate, Carl Decker, is also his Rally Car teammate. Team AC/CD (Team Adam Craig/Carl Decker) left the Interbike show in Las Vegas just a few hours after racing ‘Cross Vegas to begin the adventure Adam relates here.]

It’s nice to immediately bookend the Mountain Bike Season with something, well, else.  What better activity than racing cars around in the prairies of Eastern Washington?  Carl and I hastily departed Las Vegas at 6am (not soon enough) on Thursday morning in order to have time to take care of some last minute prep on the Rally Car and maybe, possibly, get a bit of rest before piling into the Dodge with Carl’s Dad for the seven hour drive from Bend to Pomeroy, Washington.  We just barely got the car buttoned up at about 1am but were still on the road, Longboard Louie’s breakfast burritos in hand, by 11am on Friday.  The plan was coming together…

After we left Tech Inspection and Registration  – with a (for our roving gong-show) minimal amount of being made to feel like complete novices — it appeared that the weekend of racing was starting off without a hitch. Our decision to check out the sticking right rear brake was made quite effectively on the short drive to the Pioneer Motel (a whole ‘nother set of issues) during which the car refused to coast and the brake got quite hot, to say the least…  We had the right tools for the job though.  Anything you could ever need was right in the back of the Dodge.  We had a Leatherman, some scissors, vice grips, a hammer and the impact wrench.  And the bucket o’ bolts.  An hour later we’d used the hammer and concrete wall out front in all manner of ways and eventually removed the offending seized part.  It was honed and buffed with the most rudimentary techniques, greased liberally and reinstalled.  Success.  Fortunately on our midnight test drive we realized that the odometer was already calibrated and promptly went to bed, wondering how triple digit speeds through the prairies with only a Route Book would work out in the morning…

Parc Expo on a beautiful Sunday morning.

Our first instruction in the morning with said Route Book (not to be confused with detailed Pace Notes, a Route Book basically tells you where to go and where not to crash into people’s barns) was clearly at the end of what we determined, by listening to the cars in front of us shift through five gears before braking, was a “Pavement Ends/90 Left”.  Carl used the slightly uphill braking zone concerningly late (code for perfect) to haul us down from around 90mph and flick the Subaru into a beautiful third gear slide past the first of many homesteads.  It was ON!  The stage climbed through Geiger Gulch on flowing smooth gravel and eventually crested onto the winter-wheat-covered plateaus that characterize the majority of eastern Washington.  Good sightlines made up for the lack of accurate notes and we posted a solid first stage time as told by the volunteer timekeepers who were getting dusted out by every car.  Thanks, timekeepers…

The first few stages rolled along smoothly, getting our bearings and having surprisingly good time hauling ass through gulches and open fields.  Initial fears of the speeds and unfamiliar terrain gave way to wide smiles at the end of each stage that Carl clearly drove very, very well.  It wasn’t until stage four that we realized just how well Carl was driving though, the timekeepers handed us our card and said kind of excitedly, “nice work”.  We inquired casually (not sure of protocol on this) as to just how “nice” our work was.  They casually responded that our work was the “nicest” they’d seen as of yet.  This meant quite a lot to us as the first car on the road was none other than Carl Jarvedall, a seasoned rally veteran who cut his teeth racing the Swedish Rally Series back in his home country.  For those who aren’t familiar with the distribution of rallying around the world, Scandinavia is the epicenter.  Mr. Jardevall holds a variety of stage records around the northwest and pilots an absolutely immaculately prepared Mitsubishi Evo.  When we saw him in Parc Expose in the morning we immediately were excited to see how close we could get to his times but never once considered besting them.  Suddenly we had a race on our hands.  Carl once again posted a faster time on the next running of Ball Grade Up, which happened to have a solid dose of down as well, allowing the all-out-attack skills of the formerly underpowered Wheels of Teal on downhills to shine through.  The last two miles of that stage are the most impressive driving I’ve seen Carl put together to date, linking fifth-gear sweepers together over crests like it was a walk in the park.  Stoked, and with smoking brakes, every time…

Sometimes a little printout says it all…

The day ended with back-to-back runnings of the Maxwell Hill stage around dusk.  With Jardevall fifty seconds up we knew outright victory was unlikely but hoped to post another fast stage time or two.  The cagey veteran had our number though, despite being within one m.p.h. of his speed approaching the spectator area there were some other places on the seven-mile stage that we were clearly slower, finishing ten seconds down on run #1.  The second running demonstrated the value of early road position clearly as the Evo sped off into the sunset with no dust ahead and dying winds.  We took off ten minutes later with fading light and hanging dust from the cars in front, losing a further twenty seconds to Jardevall in just one stage.  Oh well, at least we had a little battle going for a few stages there.  It was and exciting day and we were even more excited to eat a provided chilidog dinner and not work on the car with the wrong tools into the night.

Just to make sure we were still respecting our day job, Carl and I started Sunday out with a jog through town to check out our tracks from the day before.  They were rad.  And someone crashed.  A quick brake bleed (they get hot with triple digit speeds) and we rolled the car into our new Parc Expo position, second on the road behind Jardevall.  We were stoked to get to see his tracks and feel like we were really in the hunt for the win.  Turns out Carl drives a bit, well, looser than the other Carl, we were consistently entering and exiting further outside, taking more liberties with the wide roads and adjusting the line on the fly.  Decker was in his groove right off the bat, driving what we thought was a solid opening stage.  Jardevall laid down some track that we’ll just call generous into a downhill junction, showing us just where not to go off the road, but somehow still beat us by ten seconds.  Keeping us honest we supposed…  The next stage was more of the same but we kept it much closer, only seven seconds over twice the distance.  It wasn’t until stage two that we got the now-familiar look of approval from the timekeepers.  The Breakdown stage is a great place for just that, the smooth flowing county roads were traded for a decommissioned, overgrown route through a narrow wash, which was crossed numerous times via car-breaking rocky ditches.  No matter though, Carl just kept ‘er loose and took some even greater liberties with the line (and weeds) to post a time a solid ten seconds faster than the “too shiny” Evo of our competitors.  Solid.

Mark Tabor’s Subaru leaving a classic dust trail through the wheat fields.

A nice mid-day service break, lunch, some weed removal and we were on our way out of town for the final three-stage loop of the weekend.  First stage was a dead heat at 4:40, then Jardevall punched it again on New York Road to eke out another few seconds, leaving the gap at 23 seconds coming into the last running of Breakdown.  We’d taken down some notes as to the roughness of the ditches and corners to be cut and reckoned a faster time was definitely possible, kind of like a busted in half car was possible.  The spot-on Wild West Rally crew not only kept things on time all weekend, but actually let us start a couple minutes early on the final stage.  We were more than ready.  Carl continued earning his black-belt rally driver status, following my commands perfectly and taking a further 10 seconds off our first run of the stage.  We allowed ourselves to consider the unlikely prospect of Jardevall having gotten slower somehow on the second running on the 18 mile transit back to service and the virtual finish line.  Not surprisingly, the Swede got faster as well, but only matched our first time, we took the gap down to 16 seconds on the day.  Not too shabby for a couple of bike racers learning the ropes in a conservatively (cheaply) prepped car.  Jardevall, usually a quiet guy, was more and more stoked throughout the day to have someone challenging him and opened up to provide some valuable advice.  His Co-Driver, Jason Grahn, did the same, in between talking sh*t about how we couldn’t hope to beat them…  it’s this kind of camaraderie that makes racing cars in the dirt equally enjoyable to racing bikes in the same medium.  Must be something about pavement that makes people take things too seriously.  Or maybe it’s money…

Mike Decker trying to figure out how we ran over so many weeds and didn’t break the car…

In any case, it was a weekend of racing that exceeded even our loftiest expectations and got us fired up to learn more and get better at this intriguing new sport.  Carl’s dad was even more stoked than usual, having gotten to go out to a few spectator areas to see just how well his son was driving that little white car with AC/CD on the hood.

We’ll be rocking around in the Mt Hood National Forest next weekend trying to get the same kind of cheers that people love to give a car that, upon first glance, appears to be a rolling tribute to who many consider the greatest rock band of all time…

Here’s a little video we found on the internet, after this quote from our friend Byron Garth we decided not to turn on the in-car camera…  “If I had the camera running I would’ve stuffed it miles before I did…”  (He rolled his freshly prepped new WRX on the same corner that claimed rally vet Paul Ecklund and fellow Impreza pilot Mike Goodwin)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vGq7GmsEpg

(Ed. Note from Adam:  Sorry for the delay in providing news hot off the press.  I’m fundamentally opposed to spending even one more cent whilst trapped in Las Vegas [at Interbike], and, really, opposed to Vegas in general.  This prevented me from accessing the Internet, since your overpriced room in a friggin’ Casino doesn’t provide this basic 21^st century communication need.  Hope it was worth the wait…)

I think the UCI has a thing for homophones.  For the past two years an event in Australia has closely followed an event in Austria.  This makes explaining my plans a bit awkward from time to time.  Fortunately, both of these places share not only a sequence of letters, but some pretty good bike riding and general scenery.  I’d give Oz the nod in actual riding but the Austrian Alps sure are scenic.  I’d be hoping to avoid the scenery whilst racing around a World Cup Finals track in Schladming that, to be honest, didn’t really capture my imagination…

I was trying to focus on drawing strength from the mustachioed spectator on the start line. Unfortunately, the penciled-on beard adjacent interrupted the flow of rad. Then Wolfram freaked out and slipped his pedal, shuffling us both back off the line. Such high hopes from the ‘stache, dashed…

Fortunately, I had a partner in crime for a week of responsible exploration.  Anders (I’m not going to butcher his last name in print) is a member of the Norwegian Etto-Hoydahl team which happens to ride Giant bicycles on account their own merits and a little help from the team’s namesake and Giant Global alum, Rune.  This made Anders a natural pick to fill our already full Taxi Maxi Apartment to the brim.  We were glad to have him for both Norwegian culture Q&A and another riding partner.  We took a nice tour of the Rhormoos-Dachstein valley on a beautiful Tuesday to loosen the legs up.  Then on Wednesday we rode to the Reisenwasserfall (big waterfall, I reckon) as our warm-up for some practice laps.  Anders was keen to get a tip or two on riding the kind of slippery, rooty goodness that we had in Champéry last weekend.  I like tips, and goodness.  Unfortunately, there were only two roots on the Schladming course and I promptly crashed on the second one.  Must have been the (lame) hardtail not riding itself…  We reviewed why I’d crashed (front brake lever engaged while crossing muddy off-camber root) and agreed to not make the same mistake again.  Then Anders used his youthful enthusiasm (2x U-23 World Cup podium finisher in ’09) to do another practice lap while I grumbled about sore legs and a lame, grassy, up and down track then headed for the bike path to nurse my (nonexistent) wounds…

Oli did a much better job on lap one, charging up the outside on the grass and making it happen. Looks steep? It is.

This root wasn’t nearly enough to take me out, or bolster my still sore legs on Saturday, but Anders did have a little interaction with it…  I rode up and down the steep hills as best I could for six laps, finally loosening up enough to do a respectable job of it on the last lap and riding into 21^st.  Not exactly keeping the 8^th place streak at Schladming alive, but maybe a bit of punishment for skipping the inaugural event here in ’04.  I’ll chalk it up to what I like to call the late season ebb and flow.  Essentially nobody who rode well at the Worlds in Oz rode well in Champéry the next week, nor did anyone from Champéry ride well in Schladming on Saturday.  I got to ask a couple of my previous week’s top 10 compatriots why we sucked so much as we wheezed in the 30’s somewhere.  Made for light conversation at least…  Fortunately, Oli Beck was in da house to hustle his stick-man figure up hills proper fast.  He did just that, turning the previous muddy race struggling into a solid 19^th place to finish the World Cup season off.  Top shop, Beckingsale.  Now, back to Anders.  He was stoked to be using good form in a climb to 35^th position or so when, on the last lap, 2k from the finish, he washed the front wheel on the very root I turfed on Wednesday and somehow got his chain bent and rendered useless.  In the 2k of running/coasting/scootering to the finish line he lost 25 places to finish 60^th.  Oops.  Jose Antonio Hermida won.  That meant drinks were on him.  Which they were, mostly on his shirt actually, the last time I saw him on the dance floor at about 3am…

This is my kind of mountain biking. Riding a hardtail across a lawn. I might start a series.

That’s it, that’s all.  World Cup 2009 is in the books.  Oli and I planned to respect the limits of our physiology after a trying ’07 and ’08, which I think we did a good job of doing while not racing like total twats.  19^th and 34^th overall are our worst showings in, ahem, a while, but I think the mental and physical refreshment of this year will go a long way to building a stronger run at London in 2012.  From here on out, that’s the plan.  Game face on.  And a bit of play in there just to keep it, how do you say, real?

(Ed. note:  Anders last name is “Hovdenes” we think.  Thanks Anders)

“Waterfalls and fast cars don’t really phase me, but the prospect of having to deal with a bunch of cracked out Euros on a paved road will scare the poo out of me in no time.” 

(Editor’s Note: Adam Craig of the Giant Global MTB Team had his best finish in a World Cup event this season, finishing in 6^th place in the Elite Men’s cross country race in Champery, Switzerland.  The US National Short Track Champion also was the top placing North American in the event.  Here, Adam blogs about the race, and relates some of the hazards of pre-competition nerves in World Cup racing, and the inherent issue with bike racing in a skin suit.)

I’ve been pretty stoked on skiing this week.  Maybe it’s arriving in the little Swiss Alps village of Champéry and looking at avalanche barriers and classic lines on the Dents du Midi across the valley that reminded me of impending winter.  In any case, when conversation at the neighboring Maxxis team apartment spun off on the topic of some nutter skiing with the aid of a paraglider down the very peaks we gazed upon I confessed to having traveled around the world with a film featuring exactly that, in addition to a bunch of other winter sports porn.  Matchskick Productions’ “CLAIM” was rolling on their flatscreen a few minutes later.  The intro is based on the premise that people who get rad these days tend to downplay said radness.  That’s BS, according to the narrator.  It’s time to CLAIM!  All of this happens in an opening segment of shredding and fist pumps set to the classic track “Final Countdown” by Swedish rockers Europe.  It’s pretty inspiring…

Fast forward.  It’s lap two of the World Cup XC in Champéry.  I’m riding up the first proper climb of the race, a short, steep dirt track lined with screaming fans across from a meadow filled with cows sporting huge bells as a sound that’s definitely not cows rolls across the hills.  That’s right “IT’S THE FIIII-NAL COUNT-DOWN!!”  Amazing.  At about this same time I realize that I’ve survived a hectic start (more on that later) and settled into the teens somewhere with legs that feel pretty much like magic complemented by recently honed east coast skills. This could be good.  Especially with that bass-line pumping through my brain… (Which it still is now, dammit.)

Oli was wondering why I was cutting my perfectly good tires before the race. Traction, my dear Beckingsale…

Right, about that start.  Sometimes people get nervous before things that scare them.  World Cup races don’t have this effect on my seasoned persona.  Unless there’s a 1k paved climb right off the bat that you HAVE to make it to the top of in front to actually race after the first (AWESOME) descent.  Waterfalls and fast cars don’t really phase me, but the prospect of having to deal with a bunch of cracked out Euros on a paved road will scare the poo out of me in no time.  As I rolled up to the line in 22^nd position I knew what I had to do.  Leaving my trusty Anthem X Advanced SL with Felice on the grid I climbed over the fencing and spotted a port-a-loo across the way.  Salvation.  Skin suit down and “in the position” I noticed, just at the last possible second, the clear lack of T.P.  Shoot.  Big shoot.  Maybe something that rhymes with shoot but with an “i”…  Too late.  As I assessed my situation I heard the French announcer call “Deux Minutes.”  There was a rudimentary sink, no Bidet, but it’d have to do the job.  I washed up and was redressing whilst climbing over the fence and back into the fray…  Whew.

Instead of a fist pump down the finish straight like Shane McKonkey at the bottom of an Alaskan face I did the lame two-handed salute.

After that experience I was no longer worried about the difficulty of ANY bike race start, let alone this measly paved hill charge.  I held my ground and funneled into the woods at the top in about my starting position.  No gain, no loss.  Time to get to business.  The office for the day was perfect.  An already sweet track was only improved, in my opinion, by the 1cm of rain that fell at dinnertime the night before.  We knew the amount because Oli’s extremely scientific water glass placed on the porch measured the squall as such.  Then we each drank half.  It was delicious.   This water was massaged into the dank black soil by the women’s race (in which Lea Davison laid town a career best and top American in 12^th) and made the track just right.  Not muddy in a sloppy way, just slippy.  The first woods section was just like the Bog in Bangor, twisty rooty up and down-ness, then the climb, then a Mt Waldo Quarry trail copy descent with more Bog at the bottom for good measure.  I love it when they bring Maine to World Cups.   By lap three I was into the top ten and still moving forward, passing skinny guys on the climb and catching the next ones in the good bits.  A pause on lap five to ride like kind of a prick after allowing the evil thought that I was pretty good to interrupt “THE FINAL COUNTDOWN” for a moment was recovered from with two to go and the front of the race was in my sights.  It was also in five other guy’s sights.   They stayed up and I ended the day stoked in sixth place, only 1:06 away from an impressive win by Burry Stander.  Carl was right last week when he said that racing WELL is fun, not just racing for the sake of it.  I had a damn good time out there and am kind of relieved to have had at least one World Cup where things work out for the body.

Multitasking on the climb, working on both dropping Italian Champion Marco Fontana and my game face…

A pleasant cool down with 16^th place finisher Sam Schultz (where we both acknowledged the radness of the lap two soundtrack) ended a pretty darn sweet week in the Alps.  I pointed out all the sick riding around the valley that I somehow resisted overdoing it on in the name of racing well and we vowed to catch up on that upon returning for another Word Cup next year.  And yet again when the World Champs come to this idyllic village in 2011.  I’m pretty fired up for that one too…

For a pretty rad music video check this out…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_IKcMl_a9A

(Editor’s note: Giant MTB Pro and US National Short Track Champion Adam Craig and his team mate Carl Decker were selected by USA Cycling to represent the United States in the Elite Men’s XC race at the 2009 UCI MTB World Championships in Canberra, Australia on September 5th.   Competing against the world’s best XC racers, Adam finished 18^th overall, in a field of more than 70, and Carl finished 54^th.  Canberra-born Jared Rando, their Giant team mate who specializes in gravity events, represented Australia in the Elite Men’s DH competition.   Jared finished 16^th overall, only six seconds off the winning mark set by Great Britain’s Steve Peat.)

Regardless of my celebration of 2009 as a year to try out some different events and have a good time getting out of the box a bit, the World Champs is still the World Champs.  You know it’s comin’, take whatever time is available to respectfully prepare, bring your game face and have a good go.  I kind of like it; good capstone to the season.

In this particular summer’s schedule of events, a block of racing week in and week out for six in a row gave way to ten days at home in Oregon to get said game face on.  Not a whole lot, but enough if the cards are played well.  I’m no gambler, but I do know how to sleep and eat well while absolutely maximizing available training time.  In the ten days at home I got in well over thirty hours of training on the road bike and singlespeed, complemented by a glorious hundred-odd hours of sleeping, this seemed to be just the fitness revitalization that I needed on top of the recent slew of racing.  I guess we’d find out, seems like most people who race bikes are aware of the worlds and try to go ahead and be ready.

An easy flight across the Date Line and Equator dropped us in Sydney, Australia for the short drive down to Canberra.  I knew about the whole opposite hemisphere and seasons thing but the cool crisp air that greeted us as we walked to the carpark in Sydney was welcome confirmation of where we were.  Down Under — for the Worlds.  Nice.

Me racing … and fading.

Initial excitement about the cold didn’t last that long; cold is great for ski season, but bike riding with jackets on isn’t that awesome.  Fortunately, Felice had a little plan to get us used to the chill.  We’d be staying at the Australian Institute of Sport in the Athlete Halls of Residence.  They call ‘em “The Ressi’s” around here.  Sparse accommodations with brick walls and no central heat but delicious food in the dining hall and a nice place to relax and not be bothered with much other than reading and sleeping—which we did in earnest once some heaters for the rooms were implemented.

The racing was to take place at Stromlo Forest Park about 10k outside of town.  Cleared by a forest fire in 2003 the landscape is a bit barren but the trails are anything but.  Well built over the years and littered with rocks, they make for a super-fun lap with a few twists.  Steep rocky shortcuts on the climbs are complemented by small drop-offs and gap jump options placed around the track, giving riders with an ounce of skill (or bravado) a chance to overtake their competitors in an entertaining fashion.  Of course, there was still the chance to overtake in the usual manner, by riding faster into the wind, up the two main road climbs.  Good thing I’d been out on the ten-speed lots lately…

Things in the XC race started eerily easily.  The front row felt the wind and the rest of us nervously sat in for the first kilometer.  We all knew that moving too aggressively would take everyone out, but also that being toward the front as the singletrack approached was absolutely imperative.  I thought I was in the top twenty or so and happy to be safe with that.  Turns out it was more like 35^th.  Shoot.  At least I knew Carl was back there somewhere rolling operation neutral start.  Faced with a back row start position, he figured rather than getting into the inevitable back-marker crashes, just cruising along 100m behind the bunch and riding back into the impending bottleneck would be the go, keeping the legs fresh for passing when things opened up.  I’d like to try that sometime…

Carl breezing.

Todd Wells, Sam Schultz and I linked up on the first lap to test out Sam’s theory that you only need a one-to-one ratio to prep for the next block of racing—that being one week at home before another month on the road.  Seems ambitious.  Our task of riding back into a position that we’d be proud of was a reasonable ambition though.  Todd was the star of the gringos on the day, immediately leaving us in a solid ride up to 8^th place.  I kept ‘er a bit steadier, hoping that a bunch of guys would come apart after the first lap of charging.  Sam must have been a bit off on the ratio as he seemed to settle in around 30^th.  I eventually got into the top 20 and went into the last lap 18^th, where I finished, feeling like I had a bit left but just couldn’t get it.  The track was an interesting challenge; lots of the tech sections could only be ridden so fast, leaving the open road sections as only places to really do damage each lap.  I wasn’t gaining much time on these bits and was being continually balled up on the tech climbs by folks just sort of falling over in front of me.  Each blunder would happen so awkwardly and quickly that the victim would have to pick themselves up from the narrow track before anyone else could continue.  My initial call that anyone at the worlds could ride all that stuff easily was a bit off the mark.  Fortunately Canadian (code for “knows how to ride”) Max Plaxton was my riding buddy for most of the race, so in addition to sharing the pulling duties on the roads and laughing at each other’s sweet jumps, we each had someone to commiserate with about the level of incompetence.  Pretty much nobody is as rad as us.  Except for the 17 who beat us.  And some other guys I’m sure.  Ouch…

Carl moved solidly forward and picked off 24 guys to end up 54^th, all seven laps completed.  He had a good time and didn’t worry too much about the meowing directed his way while riding the chicken (or kitten?) route around THE HAMMERHEAD drop.  Way to stick to your guns, Carl.  Maybe he’ll be doing the meowing at SSWC09 in Durango coming right up…

Oh, and someone did win.  It was Nino Schurter in fact, the young Swiss rolled his U23 World Title streak straight into the Elites with a one-second victory over the previously unstoppable, and apparently on-form Julien Absalon.  Well played, Nino.

BONUS ROUND!

Like last year at the Canberra World Cup, the local crew, Canberra Off-Road Cyclists, organized a demonstration Short Track race on Sunday for those of us still in town.  A similar track was used: that being a rad one.  A handful of jumps and berms connected the dots around the park’s infield area.  30 or so World-caliber chaps lined up under sunny skies (unlike last year) to race for $5000.  One of those chaps was a German on a 4X bike.  He sprinted off the line like it was a BMX race and had enough of a gap in the first turn to slide out and still be winning for the rest of the lap.  I’m used to racing short track but this little stunt (or someone using their skills, depending on your point of view) caught me out and set up another day of people lying on the floor in front of me for no reason.  Awesome.  By the time folks stopped crashing in the on-camber to off-camber (basic terrain reading here, people) transition at the end of the start straight, there were only three laps left for me to get back in the money.  I got up to fourth as Kabush rolled off the front in his customary style to take yet another short win.  Oh well, at least [Filip] Meirhaeghe didn’t win.  Although for some reason I didn’t stuff him for third…  I must have been worried about some kind of ‘roid rage beat down…  Carl got chopped on one of the rock gaps and flatted.  We totally would have used super clever tactics to win if he hadn’t, then we could’ve bought the whole bar later that night.

Our former teammate Amiel Cavalier lives nearby in Wollongong and came over to do some spectating for the first time in his life.  He’s been racing off-road on Dirt Bikes, winning everything in the Expert class on his KTM supported 250.  So basically he’s Carl and I’s hero.  We all hooked up after the ST and hiked up Mount Stromlo to catch up and watch some DH action up-close.  Those guys are fast.  And clever.  It was a short but super interesting track, linking up the flow of each section was imperative to a clean, fast, momentum filled run.  Steve Peat came down with the fastest time, 0.05 sec faster than his Syndicate Teammate Greg Minnar.  It’s about time, Peaty.  Good to see.  Aussie Jared floated over the ground for 16^th place.

Jared floating.

That’s about it from Oz, it’s a rainy Monday morning and we’re lounging around, trying to decide between Go-Karting and packing for the flight to Switzerland tomorrow.  Yup, there’s two more World Cups after the Worlds.  I hope Sam’s 1:1 ratio is right.

I’ve left my camera cable at home so we’re at the disposal of Gary Perkins.  He’s good.  Here are a few shots of people actually riding bikes.

(Editor’s note: Giant MTB Pro and US National Short Track Champion Adam Craig has had an extremely busy end-of-season. He’s not only been racing, but he’s been flying across the country, chatting with the press about Giant’s new 2010 Maestro-suspension bicycles. He also has been selected, along with teammate Carl Decker, to represent the U.S. at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championship in Canberra, Australia.  Another teammate, Aussie Jared Rando, has been selected to represent his country at the same venue.)  

Sorry for the lack of communication the last couple weeks; I’ve been enjoying taking it easy mid-week at home in Maine — and not having much in the way of innerweb access on the race weekends either.  Sleeping, eating, training, racing and driving around occupies a lot of time in the dog days of summer…  The back roads of New England, while extremely scenic, don’t exactly make the 600 or so miles driven every week from race to Corinth and back the quickest of trips.  Not that there’s anywhere I’d rather be this time of year, great rides with the boys in Maine during the week, some warm water kayaking and playing cribbage with Dad generally make my day, every day.  Racing proper mountain biking on the weekends is the icing on my East Coast summer cake.  With this in mind, let’s look back at some highlights from the last few weeks back east.

I hung out at Mom’s house too. She didn’t have as many cookies, which made it easier for me to relax there…

Actually, the week between World Cups #5 and 6 in Quebec was kind of a different approach…  As per usual, I drove back to Maine on Sunday night in order to have plenty of time for a ride and to check the water level at Gulf Hagas (it was good).  A nice four-hour road ride on Tuesday around the old coastal hills stomping ground was just what the body and mind needed.  Then, Wednesday I went to the airport.  Wait, aren’t both races a pleasant afternoon drive from Grandma’s house?  This airport run was to attend the Giant Bicycles 2010 Product Launch in Keystone CO.  Normally I’d be unimpressed with leaving my beloved east coast schedule, but hey, its 2009 and they said I’d get to ride an ‘o10 Glory on downhill trails all day.  Sounds like good race prep to me…  It was super fun to spend a couple evenings shooting the sh*t with editors from around the world and daylight hours shredding the bike park amidst a freak mid-summer snowstorm…  The skies even parted for a quick sunset trip around the 20-mile “Epic” test loop on the new Giant Trance X Advanced SL with the fittest DH magazine editor out there; Mark Jordan.  I’ll do a bunch more rides this year but that one is going to be top three regardless — dank dirt Colorado Trail charging into the unknown with magical light.   Mmmmm….  A late night pool game and early morning shuttle to Denver had me back in Montreal by rush hour on Friday, just in time to get muddy at Bromont for the weekend.

Speaking of Bromont, World Cup #6 was an exact carbon copy of the stop there last year.  It started raining an hour before race time and had dropped an inch by the time the gun went off.  At least another fell during the race, making things a bit sloppy to say the least…  Other than being a bit tired from the CO trek I was LOVING it.  Our decade-old Michelin Wildgrippers held strong and I moved solidly up to 10^th by the finish.  I figured if I wasn’t going to help with tear-down I’d better make some prize money for Joe and Felice to buy dinner with.  Carl might’ve gotten in the money if he’d had the super tires too, his 33^rd place, while rad, doesn’t show how fast the boy was riding out there as the race wore on.  I found more when I got back to Grandma’s that night after driving through the same awesome rainstorm most of the way.

One can say that Kayak trips come down to timing.  Quite simply, there has to be water.  Lizzy English hit the nail on the head when she arrived in Maine the day after two inches of rain fell.  We headed straight for the western mountains and Sandy Stream, the granite of which I hadn’t been on in years.  Seeing people actually swimming at the “Rope Swing” drop was strangely pleasant.  The next day it was the uber-classic slate gorge of Gulf Hagas.  I could get into this 85-degree creek boating thing for sure…

Lizzy and I went to Sandy Stream in the western mountains of Maine. I like it there.

Before we knew it another workweek had passed and we were headed south to Mount Snow, Vermont for the Mt Snow MTB Fest and US Cup Series race on the weekend.  I kind of like the inverted professional schedule.  The weather finally broke for the Vermont weekend, although the black flies were out in full force on account of the recent moisture.  I started the XC race with heavy legs and struggled to hang on for the climb.  Just as I was getting dropped the extra weight of my legs proved too much for my back tire, and I got a classic “just riding along” flat tire.  The spare tube I’ve carried in every race this summer was flat too.  Sweet.  Oh well, I’ve raced at Mount Snow for A LOT of years and haven’t had any bad luck, ever, which is surprising considering how unforgiving the terrain is and with what irresponsible glee I ride here most of the time…  This year was a good one to have things go awry, it not being a National Championship race and all.   The Cross Country events were held down for Team Giant by Lizzy with an Age Group victory and second overall in the Cat 1 (Expert) race (much) earlier in the morning.  Guess kayakers make good bike riders?

Super D was Sunday morning and rumor had it there would be rain overnight.  We did the Oli Beckingsale trick with a water glass on the porch to gauge the amount of slop we’d have to deal with on the track.  Turns out it was none, just a nice misty morning in the Appalachians.  There was time for some practice so Carl, Jeff Lenosky and I took full advantage and shredded a few runs.  Fun times.  Thanks to our new Shimano DX shoes the LeMans start went well with “college runner” Carl dropping in first with me third behind Adam Snyder.  I made the pass on Snyder (guess 650C wheels aren’t faster…) and set my sights on Carl who was doing a fine job of protecting the inside lines.  We settled for an all-out drag race up the short fireroad climb and some seriously sloppy point riding on my part after that.  I figured I had him as we bombed down the final ski runs at well over 30mph but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that Carl was wearing a slippery UCI-banned skinsuit and I was all steezed out in my baggy Fox gear, flapping in the wind.  I think the flapping quieted for a moment as Carl drafted past me before the last bridge and fall-away finish.  Good thing they banned those things, he looked super dorky whilst winning…  Lizzy kept the Giant for Women’s flag a-flying in Kelli’s absence with a second place in the Pro/Open Super D, also wearing baggies to defeat by a lycra-clad competitor.  Coincidence?

Carl talks to Joe about how rad his bike is while Scott Papola from Fox looks on.

Carl and I were faced with an awkward amount of time between our 166% effort (against each other) in the Super D and the Short Track start.  About two hours.  Just enough time to cool down and stiffen up but a bit long to just keep riding.  Hmmm.  We ate some stuff and drank some stuff and changed clothes then started warming up again for the short contest.  Turns out I should’ve just kept it rolling…  Then maybe I would have been able to turn my pedals at all for the first ten minutes.  Carl did just fine, must have been the thrill of victory powering him.  He was riding steadily in third as I got my life on track and started catching up from the 20’s somewhere.  Sometime in there a corner was casually blown by Decker and casually corrected with a right leg dab.  Usual stuff.  Except somehow he whacked the handlebar in the process and split his knee open.  Had I known this upon catching up in grand style, I wouldn’t have asked him to “pull me up to JHK and I’ll get him on the climb”, I might have said “is that your kneecap?”  But pull me up he did, and pass Jeremy on the last lap in hot pursuit of Kabush and T Wells I did.  That’s teamwork, right?  Am I responsible for his $460 stitches bill as the teammate who came out on top?

Nice midweek weather in Maine was a welcome sight to the local boys and they were fired up for some riding at Mount Waldo.  Sparky took Lizzy and I out to show us the new trail, Goat Blower.  Justin and I agreed it definitely doesn’t blow goats…  Then the next day, Porter and the Orono boys gave a tour of some fresh nuggets in the University Forest and Orono land trust.  Good stuff, which the difficulty of simply riding on I’d forgotten.

Another midweek, another drive south, this time to Windham, NY.  We’d raced the National Round here last year and had a damn good time hanging out with the stoked locals and riding rad trails.  The recent announcement of the 2010 World Cup Schedule with Windham hosting the finals had created quite a buzz and we were looking forward to getting out and previewing the track.  While a bit shorter, it was still the same overall amount of awesome as last year, interesting stair-stepping climbs with fast flowy descents sprinkled in the woods between.  Also sprinkled in the woods was a record amount of rainfall so far this summer.  This challenge and the resulting perfect course conditions are a testament to the dedication of the Windham Crew.  Hundreds of yards of bridge and rockwork made the boggy sections not only rideable but pretty interesting to boot.  High five.  If I’d only had the energy to ride it fast on Saturday.  I felt decent but just didn’t have the kick to ride with the leaders.  6^th on the day.  That should improve in twelve months for sure, regardless of the difference in field depth…  Carl had a good battle with Mike Broderick to come home tenth.  Cash Money!  In her continuing mysterious ability to ride bikes fast, Lizzy took home the overall Cat 1 XC win by four minutes.  Her last lap strategy was something about “I just stood up and charged all the climbs, which wasn’t as hard as I thought it should be.”  Felice’s bike is fast…

I told you Bromont was muddy. This is my best gnarly face, too. Still kind of weak…

Super D followed the XC almost immediately; good thing the temp began to cool a tiny bit from close to 90 and quite humid, enabling us to at least pretend to get rehydrated and ready to do a 100 meter dash with a somersault thrown in for good measure…  Our short track fortunes of last week were juxtaposed, as I used good legs to ride in to the lead by the beginning of the descent proper and Carl fought the burn to stay in the mix.  I had checked out and was looking forward to shredding the rest of the course proper and solo when I heard the familiar sound of air hissing…  Oops.  Guess I shredded a bit too hard on knife-edged ledge.  I instructed Carl to “SMOKE THOSE FOOLS” before toodling off down the ski run shortcut to watch the finish.  He did, just barely.  Lizzy had the Women’s similarly in the bag when she experienced a similar sensation in the back of her bike.  First flat tire of her budding career.  Lucky!

Short Track was Sunday at Noon-Thirty, which would leave plenty of time for venison and eggs and a proper “warm-up”.  After my abysmal showing last weekend and Sam Schultz pointing out the obvious that “if you warmed up hard you might start harder” I strapped on the dreaded heart-rate monitor and set about doing some efforts in the sun.  It worked.  I started fine and settled into the lead group, waiting for Carl to get on before we tried anything.  He needed to be close to Jeremy H-K to hold onto second in the series.  Well, Carl never caught on and eventually I had to start racing when Kabush attacked and got a gap with that cheeky Schultz boy.  They were stronger than my solo chase so I ended up battling with Sid Taberlay for third.  He got me after not doing much work the rest of the race…  Carl was 8^th, one spot too far behind JHK…

The other bonus of mid-day racing is there’s plenty of time to ride down to the swimming hole for a dip before the inevitable trailer teardown and World Champs bike packing jobs commenced.  Lizzy got the beta from some locals at the gas station that Mosquito Point was the spot.  A 30-40 foot bridge jump with a rope swing and clear cool water underneath was just what the doctor ordered on another uncomfortably warm afternoon in the Catskills.  A nice way to wind down from a fairly tiring six weeks of back-to-back racing and traveling.

Now it’s time for Carl and I to head home (Bend, OR), rest up for a few days and then try to find some form for the upcoming World Champs in Australia.  We’re thinking of riding road bikes to the Oregon Coast and back, and over some hills in the process…  That should do the trick.

It’s proper summer, or at least it should be by now…  Usually racing on the Right Coast in July is confirmation of this; fitness is coming around, everything is green and warm, swimming holes are packed, etc.  Not this past weekend in Quebec; Grandma had been complaining of lowery weather in the northeast so far this summer but I figured, how bad could it be?  Well, if you’re Carl, pretty bad, if you’re Oli and I, it’s just the way it goes…  Oli did give the ultimate insult; he reckoned being at Mont St. Anne was pretty much like being home in Bristol, England; he didn’t even have jet lag because his body was so familiar…  Ouch.  Fortunately, Carl brought two long-sleeved skinsuits to attempt to offset his rain-pants oversight and let me borrow one to conceal my own oversight…

I do love racing in Quebec though, and crappy weather only makes me like it more.  Yet, for some reason on Sunday morning, when I woke to heavy clouds and rain, I wasn’t as out-of-my-skin stoked that I normally would be.  Maybe it was the previous weekends of racing wearing me down.  Or maybe I’m turning into a sissy westerner.  I’d come around once the gun went off.

Actually, I needed to come around the German guy who slipped his pedal (not that I haven’t been that guy…) and then a bunch of other guys who didn’t and were doing the standard rabid start while I was spinning grass into my drivetrain and being all around lackadaisical for some reason.  It wasn’t until I was standing in the woods,  shooting the breeze with Mike Broderick and waiting for guys to file through a single-lane rocky climb, that I realized I’d blown it.  3:00 and change on the clock after one lap of complete and utter woods riding incompetence magnified by the accordion effect of being somewhere in the 60’s.  Bummer.  I woke up and got my groove on to set about the task of moving through the field on a perfect course in perfect (muddy but not sloppy) conditions.  It would at least be entertaining to pass a bunch of dudes.

Photo 1: I drove home late Sunday night, hoping that I wouldn’t near Carl’s and my record of 22 Moose sightings a few years back. Turns out I only saw eight; that’s hardly any… It also turns out Moose are hard to pin down with headlights for nighttime photography. I promise there’s one in there somewhere.

I eventually caught up with a couple guys in Giant Kits, one being a slightly-bloodied Oli (Beckingsale, Giant Global MTB teammate) and the other our Czech mate Jan Karnitzl.  We rode for a few together then I set off on my merry way forward.  Little did I know that as I was riding happily through the woods, Oli’s slightly bloody status had increased exponentially.  The old boy somehow fell off a turn in a way that put his head in close proximity to a broken branch.  This branch deftly used his ear to pluck him off from his bike and place him roughly on the floor.  He immediately made the decision to stay down and assess the situation.  The initial reaction to touch the burning pain on the side of his head produced a hand covered in blood.  This soon turned into a right side of his body coated in crimson.  Scary.  A four-wheeler ride down the hill by some concerned First Aid folks and a quick stitch job to both his ear and scalp in the triage room and he was pronounced not dead.  It could have gone either way for a while there…

Photo 2: Fog is a great medium through which to look for moose… I’m scared.

I’m not sure if Oli was done getting stitched by the time I was done getting my life together, but it all worked out for us in the end.  I finally started to get clear track and faster people to hunt down which upped my pace to what seemed reasonable for a World Cup race.  That being pretty fast…  With one lap to go I was closing in on the Top 20 and figured that would be a reasonable result considering the start blowup.  Somehow I ended up getting by a bunch more guys, who were impressively coming apart at the seams on the fairly awesome, yet quite difficult, track…  Good times feeling the eye of the tiger in the last hour.  12th place flashed on the board at the line; the two guys I had in my sights were lucky we finished there and not after the next woods section.

Photo 3: The late night driving was worth it though. I got to sleep till noon and have lunch with Grandma on the sun-porch — the highlight being watching this ninja chipmunk figure out how to climb the texture-less metal birdfeeder pole and leap to said feeder. Only to find it empty. He stayed there for 15 minutes just out of principle…

Our Giant Swiss teammate Martin Franger came across a couple minutes later, stoked on his first World Cup top 20 and making it onto the U23 overall prodium.  I like that Martin; he’s a good bike rider.

It wasn’t until after a little Freecaster.tv filming for Fox Racing Shox and a cool-down ride that I remembered every modern World Cup rider’s consolation prize.  The “Race Analysis.”  Turns out on the last three laps of the six lap contest I was 5th, 4th and 3rd fastest, closing in on the lap times of Julien Absalon and Jose Antonio Hermida.  I’ll take this knowledge through the winter with me in my casual attempt to keep Absalon’s Mont St. Anne World Championship titles to just one, that one coming in the Junior category in 1998, my first World Champs.

Till then, or this weekend in Bromont for the next World Cup stop, thanks for reading along.  I’m stoked that it’s summer!  Hope you’re out shredding, too.

Well, it had to come to an end sometime.  I’d had two years of a “my race to lose” situation with National Championships taking place in the homeland, that being Mount Snow, Vermont.  When I learned that Sol Vista, Colorado took over for 2009 and 2010 edition, it was obvious that I’d have my work cut out for me.  Ah well, I like work.  Carl was fired up too; he likes racing at altitude for some reason…  We set about our tasks of getting ready for the biggest day of domestic racing every summer in different ways but with equal desire to be on point for July 18 and 19.

The big weekend came up a bit faster on me, racing tons of semi-local fun stuff along the Pacific Rim made June and July fly by.  Carl, on the other hand, was ready for some proper competition and a change of scenery.  I was pulling for him to pull one out on account of textbook preparation, at the same time as hoping that the sum of my racing and traveling was good practice for, well, racing and traveling.  Turns out it was, sort of.

First test was the Cross Country, which we’d heard was kind of lame.  After Joe, Rando, Carl and I did a twilight lap upon our arrival Thursday evening we determined that the complainers didn’t like mountain biking.  After an initial STEEP climb it was into the (eerily bark-beetle-killed) forest for a perfectly graded singletrack climb to a beautiful vista at the summit of the ski area, 9,202 feet above sea level…  From there the Patriot Trail wound steeply, then flowingly, down through the Aspens toward the village.  Seems good to me.  Anthem X was definitely the call… even Kelli rode it, which is my barometer for when a course is worth riding.

The race started at a pace respectful of the elevation and the obvious physiological limitations that coincide with such a deficit of oxygen.  This let me crest the climb in second place after ignoring said limitations for a couple minutes.  I reeled JHK (Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski) in on the descent and he let me by so I could have my fun.  Totally won the first lap!  He also totally passed me back about 100 yards into lap two at the crest of the first lung-busting pitch with Todd Wells in hot pursuit.  I settled into reality and watched them climb away into the afternoon sun.  After two laps the gap was a minute, then two, then four, then…  I wondered where Carl was, not having much opportunity to check on my competition with the treed course layout, and I could only see Sam Schultz, 46 seconds back every lap to keep me honest.  This is how I reckoned things would finish up until I saw Todd walking his bike up the climb.  His left crank had broken off.  Oops.  I held it together for default second on the day.  Losing to Horgan-Kobelski by a similar margin to what I took him by in Vermont the last two years.  Funny how much better people are at racing in their backyards…  Carl was at the trailer when I rolled in from Doping Control, he was all cleaned up on account of having packed it in mid-race.  Sometimes a body that’s perfectly prepped just doesn’t like the feel of racing all of a sudden, and he was in danger of getting beaten by Ned Overend, which is something we both refused to do.  Saving up for the Short Track seemed like the smart thing to do for me, too…  wish I’d thought of that.

Photo 1: The “Muscles” display in crossing the finish line first. Photo by Jake Orness

Northwest Ripper Spencer Paxson (S&M Young Guns) swung by the trailer fired up to climb up and do a Super D practice run after the XC dust settled.  He was pumped on his 10th place finish (solid career best) and wanted to check out the SD track.  I had to tell him to slow down on the way up, but you can’t really put a price on enthusiasm…  We dropped in and learned that it was indeed a downhiller’s Super D.  No matter, he’d just been to the Whistler Bike Park and I’d raced proper DH just a few weeks back.  We reckoned we had it in the bag.  Too bad Whistler and Fluidride don’t involve running to, or with your bike in any way, shape or form.  I’m just bitter because I suck at running…  Carl is well good at it though, and his textbook middle distance starting stance even seemed to intimidate our start line neighbors bright and early on Sunday morning.  They must have short memories, because once the gun went off it was all fisticuffs, pushing and clawing from all sides as we ran to our bikes, then more pushing and shoving as we tried to get on them, and more as we rounded the first of three flat, taped switchbacks intended to sort things out before the next (and final) five minutes of dusty shredding to the finish.  I guess things up front must have sorted a bit, because where we were it looked like twenty or so dudes worth of dust and mayhem in the woods.  I was tempted to just take a different trail down but figured if they all crashed into each other in a way that I could circumnavigate I’d still have a shot.  Surprisingly, they didn’t, although Aaron Bradford (NW ripper alumni) did put a solid inside move on perennial aggressor Mike West for the win with Rad Ross safely in third.  In the women’s race our girl Elke Brutsaert might have been considered an underdog by the untrained observer, but we knew that over a decade of World Cup DH racing combined with a summer full of epic riding for the first time in about as long might just have molded her into the ultimate Super D contender.  She was - owning the course from top to bottom for the title.  Emmett was happy to get third in the wake of such domination.  As far as “five year streak ending” boys results go, I was 11th and Carl 15th.  We should have stayed in bed…

Back to bed we went after some comfort food (Kozy Shack and an omelette) to try and get our lives on track for the last race of the weekend - Short Track.  Sleeping was hard for me with the memory of drilling my head into the ground while practicing the Short Track course on the way home.  They’d thrown together a classic afterthought track heading straight up the ski slope for a couple minutes, then back down over a wooden ladder bridge thingy and through some randomly taped turns on the bunny hill.  Lame!  It hadn’t been mowed in a while and had a classic high-speed slide-out in a hidden waterbar, which resulted in my head taking the brunt of the impact.  Awesome.  Combined with sucking at starting aggression and the prior Super D shellacking, I was pretty annoyed with the whole morning… irritated even.

Turns out irritated is a fast emotion.  I was realistic about the prospect of winning a Short Track with a huge climb (Carl has raced almost every single short track ever, and has never seen a climb that big) at solid altitude, but reckoned I’d give it a go anyway.  The pimp new Shimano Yumeya kit (mostly white and gold accents for XTR, with some tricks to make things lighter and better too) Anthem X Advanced SL was so rad that it couldn’t NOT be ridden… even though Carl’s choice of the hardtail seemed smart on account of the climbing that we faced.  I reckoned I could at least hit the bridge step-down and entertain the crowd, going so far as to run a bit higher tire pressure to avoid flatting after huge air.  Turns out the Totally Awesome bike was the call - I got back on the horse and rode the descent fast every lap, eventually bridging back up to the lead group of three.  Just as I made contact a very official sounding voice at the start line said “TWO TO GO!” so I figured I’d just do the old “right through” attack on the climb.  Passing Todd, Jeremy and Sam seemed kind of easy so I punched it over the top and rallied the descent thinking I’d drive the final nail on the last lap and salvage a National Title for the weekend.  It worked perfectly: I had enough time to think about my victory salute (Skeet shooter? No, too elaborate for the bumpy grass.  Ghost Ride-Along? No, too bumpy again.  Straight hand raise? Boring.  Simple smiling shrug?  Played out.) Unfortunately, my delivery was interrupted by the ACTUAL officials holding up an official looking sign that said “3 To Go.”   Oops.  I had fifteen seconds on the chasers, who looked pretty demoralized, but had saved exactly zero energy for even ONE more lap.  I decided to take it down a notch, absorb some of the electric crowd energy and squeeze in a recovery lap while still somehow looking unbreakable to my chasers.  It worked, I stretched the lead back out to around twenty seconds by the time the checkers fell and decided to go for the simple “Muscles” display across the line to make Ross proud.  Carl got his body working right and rode solidly in for 6th on the day, he was confused about what was going on up at the front when it appeared I was winning, something we’d deemed unlikely at best…  Once again I proved to myself that the greatest things come with the most reasonable of expectations.  All due respect to those who believe in concrete goals of course…

Photo 2: Spraying champagne, as you will, when you’ve got a bottle and a target. In this case, photographer Jake Orness from Giant…

It was a great weekend overall, Carl and I picked up prize money in the evening and had a chat with Kelli Lusk from USA Cycling who was able to quantify just how good the weekend was.  1800 people raced and almost all of them had a great time.  Sol Vista did a solid job of hosting their first national caliber event and should be able to build on the momentum of the weekend for next July’s edition.  I’ll be back, a little more savvy with altitude racing and a little better at kicking people out of the way on the start line…

I’ve always wanted to go to the Downieville Classic for a variety of reasons.  First of all, and most importantly, the riding sounded sweet.  Second of all, the sound of Mark Weir’s voice slinging BS about his “ultimateness” needed to be addressed.  Two things happened last year that confirmed my plans for this year, first off, I spent a weekend in Downieville last fall riding some damn fine singletrack, second, Rad Ross went and took care of Weir (even though a much quieter Jason Moeschler actually always wins the All Mountain) at last year’s event so I wouldn’t look like a sissy if I got beat…  Mostly it was the prospect of doing a week of kick-ass riding in the name of “practice” and swimming in the North Yuba River in the name of “recovery” that sealed the deal for Kelli and I.

Since we had to keep a respectful eye on the fact that Mountain Bike National Champs were the next weekend at 8000 feet in Colorado, the decision was made to rent an RV for a week of camping at Packer Saddle (7100’) to keep our wheezing level high in preparation for CO.  This also meant that we were about two minutes and three waterbar-booters from the Sunrise trailhead every morning when we woke up to the, er, sunrise over the Sierras.  Fellow Northwesterners Matthew Slaven, Danni Dance and The White Buffalo posted up next door and got a fire permit, greatly enhancing our sunset viewing and general camping lifestyle.

Photo 1: The sunsets at the RV were real nice.

No good race weekend is complete without showing up too late but with too much unbridled enthusiasm to avoid doing an evening practice run.  We met Kelli Emmett in Bassets with the RV and headed to Downieville to set shuttle.  My normal shuttle schedule is based on said shuttling taking place in my WRX, so I reckoned we had plenty of time to make it up to the put-in in time for an hour-long run.  After marveling at the Dodge Sprinter based Winnebago’s surprisingly sporty handling for an hour, then its waterbar crossing ability, we were suited and booted with barely the hour we needed.  Kelli and I grabbed headlamps for the inevitable and set off for a run.  After the inevitable line scouting and tire pumping we definitely needed the lights.   Ah well, line comprehension is way better in the dark anyway…

Photo 2: So were the delicious Buffalo Burger dinners. Thanks, Emmett.

Wednesday morning I woke up to prepare for my “commute” to “work.”  This involved riding down the Downieville Downhill to link up with a group of junior riders for the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship youth day.  Slaven almost made me late by crashing spectacularly on Upper Butcher and getting a flat tire on First Divide.  If these are the kinds of roadblocks I encounter on my way to work for the day I’m doing something right for sure.  And he didn’t die.  Which is amazing.  We loaded up a Yuba Expeditions van with young shredders and reported to Packer Saddle.  Once there, Carter of SBTS rallied the troops to discuss the finer points of the Sunrise Trail land access and construction.  Turns out SBTS did a ton of legwork before they even built this couple mile section of bliss that starts every ride from the Saddle.  Good work guys.  Then we ripped it.  Kids ride fast.  More stops to discuss trail stewardship along the way down were offset by trail rallying technique tips from us who pretend to know about that stuff.  And we fixed some flat tires.  Par for the (rocky, fast and AWESOME) course.

Photo 3: Driving home through the desert we came across our favorite Mainahs at the gas station in Alturas. We had a picnic of sorts then beat them home by 45min. Cars are fast.

Speaking of the course, Ross talked me into doing another run with him after we got done shredding with the kids.  I was sore, but what are you going to say?  No?  It was pretty rad to do a steady run with someone you trust and love riding with.  We rode smooth and fast down sunrise, stopped and chatted about how much air was smart on Upper Butcher’s waterbars and whether it made sense to ride straight inside lines out of the grippy groove or just be lemmings with traction.  I said inside.  There was the obligatory stop at The Waterfall on Butcher Ranch proper, we determined that flatting or crashing would be bad, otherwise it was a wash.  Inside again.  Then on to the real test-piece of the race, in my opinion, the 30+ MPH Third Divide.  You don’t need to use your brakes for concerningly long sections, but you sure want too…  We agreed that we’d leave that to the local bike shop kids, Travis and Evan, they’re way less scared than us.  A nice twenty-minute pedal down First Divide, taking care to not fall off the cliff it’s cut into and we were eating ice cream cones and going for a swim.  This is Downieville.

Photo 4: Felice told me my legs were too mashed from all the shredding to ride on Tuesday, so we went kayaking. The secret waterfall is in!

All right, enough talk about how rad the riding is and such.  How about racing?  Also rad..  The XC started off in Sierra City and immediately climbed 3000’ to the Sierra Buttes.  Some really ripped guy rode off the front immediately, but everyone else was happy to ease into their morning climb.  Eventually Sid Taberlay (who I was pissed that I had to ride hard enough to stay with), Chris Sheppard and I rolled off the front, upping the pace in hopes that it made the climb seem shorter.  It did.  Sid and I crested Packer Saddle in 48 minutes after working together well and he kindly let me enter the Sunrise Trail first with nobody else in sight.  I rode like someone who’d just climbed for a long time and barely managed a 10 second gap by the time we started the dirt road traverse to the Pauley Creek drainage.  Sid just barely caught up just as we dropped into Baby Heads, a high speed doubletrack covered in, well, baby heads.  I figured, pshttttt, I’ll roll and smoke Sid on his lowly Epic XC bike with my super gnarly Giant Trance X Trail Bike.  (first evil thought) and set about spraying rocks in his general direction.  I was pretty chuffed with my job of this as I sprayed rocks through an especially steep bit with bunch of spectators (evil thought number two) and figured I was a rad enough rider to inside drift the next corner.  I nearly died.  And Sid caught back up.  Think evil thoughts and you’ll be punished…  I eventually got my life on track and set about the task of having a good time riding fast (but not too good) and getting a gap on my tenacious competition.  It wasn’t until Third Divide where I begrudgingly realized I’d have to no-brake it if there was a hope of winning.  Turns out no brakes is the funnest thing you’ll do on any given day.  I hit First Divide clear and made it to Downieville alone in 1:52.  Local hope and all-around nice guy Jason Moeschler was third in 1:55, also breaking the previous XC course record of 1:56.  We rode pretty fast!

Emmett rode pretty fast too, fast enough to finish third in the women’s race but not fast enough to stay in front of a hard charging Myles Rockwell on the downhill, he made a fairly aggressive pass with some choice words thrown in for good measure.  Kelli was sure to remind our boy that he wasn’t exactly racing for the XC win…  Somehow our favorite Class V Kayaker, Lizzy English, rode her Reign to 5th in the Pro Women’s field, not bad for her third race ever…  I guess hiking with a ninety-pound kayak over mountain passes then running scary rapids for days on end is indeed harder than a two-hour bike ride.  Or she’s just a machine.  Hmm.

We spent the afternoon hanging about downtown, while swimming I got recruited for the River Jump World Championships Celebrity Judging Panel.  Scott Nicol was ringleader of a rag-tag bunch including HB, Frischi, Myles Rockwell, Rad Ross and Willow Koerber.  She was immediately named the beer-getter and tricked some unsuspecting boy into delivering a cooler for our (de?) hydration needs.  I almost was relieved of my duties as my buddy Brian Kenton (2008 World Mustache Champion) was entered and I insisted on priority for his advancement on simple facial hair merit.  Too bad for Brian, there were some guys who could do all kinds of crazy tricks…  His backflip to ball-slap was good enough to make it to round two but after he admitted that the same trick didn’t hurt “that bad” the second time around despite the bloody chainring gash on his arm(?) he was out …  From there it was down to a French guy and someone who knew what they were doing for the final.  French guy tried the old “underwear” trick with limited crowd approval and was ultimately taken down by Andrew Taylor’s perfectly landed Backflip-Tailwhip.  Pretty cool.

The best thing about camping at the top of a downhill racecourse is that you wake up at the start.  This made the 9:30 start much easier to swallow after yet another night of wheezing, wondering just how my heartrate was and exactly where I would crash spectacularly or get a flat tire in the DH race… For good measure I tried to bundle crashing and flatting into one split second pretty early on in the race.  There were a bunch of people watching and holding cameras on Upper Butcher so I figured I’d send one of the waterbars a bit larger than usual.  Committed to flight, I noted the square rock I was going to land on.  Shoot.  After somehow trying to change my mid-air trajectory, I felt my suspension bottom, then the tire bottom out on the rim but somehow, Mr Bib protected me from what I deserved.  Thanks, Michelin Reinforced tire technology.  From there it was pretty much gravy.  I rode fast, passed some guys with clear vision thanks to my choice of goggles for eyewear and continued to not screw up whilst shredding trails that I knew just enough about to ride fast and not die.  My legs even felt good.  Perfect.  I crossed the line 43:48 later, enough for first on the day and fastest Downieville Downhill time ever.  Ross and Moeschler beat the previous record too.  We’re all getting faster…  Next year should be good.

In the ladies’ challenge, Kelli had a solid run and held onto her third overall with ease.  Our favorite Czech, Katerina Nash, shredded and took the Women’s All Mountain crown.  Lizzy was stoked on 5th overall too, but kind of secretly wished she was in expert so as to have received some cool prizes for winning…  Oh well, shooting for the stars gets you in the foot sometimes.

The northwest boys (White Buffalo, Slaven and Nathan Riddle) and I did a cool-down on the recently completed North Yuba trail.  Turns out that trail is friggin’ rad!  This reminded me about the whole point of the Downieville Classic, to raise money for and awareness of the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship.  To this end, Katerina and I donated some of our winnings to them.  Here’s to more great weekends of shredding in Downieville.

Check out photos from Adam’s victory last week at California’s 2009 Downieville Classic, one of the toughest all-mountain races in the world.

Photo 1: Giant MTB Pro Adam Craig on course to win the 2009 Downieville Classic.

Photo 2: Giant MTB Pro Kelli Emmett took third place in both point-to-point and Super D events, and claimed third overall at Downieville.

Photo 3: Adam on the top step of the podium, claiming the overall win and both stages of the 2009 Downieville Classic. On the left of Adam is 3rd place winner Sid Taberlay; on the right is 2nd place winner Jason Moeschler, and 4th place finisher Chris Sheppard.